Class Notes

Question 1

What are the different kinds of socialization?

Answer 1

There is primary socialization, adult socialization, anticipatory socialization, and resocialization

Question 2

What is socialization?

Answer 2

Socialization is the process through which we learn the the ways of a given society or social group so that we can function within it
It prepares us for the statuses we occupy

Question 3

What are the agents of socialization?

Answer 3

Family, peers, education, and media

Question 4

What is primary socialization?

Answer 4

It encompasses the socialization processes that we experience early on in life. This comes from our family, siblings and extended family as well as language, culture, standards/norms and roles. It shapes our early motivations, beliefs and values

Question 5

What is adult socialization?

Answer 5

It is socialization that occurs in adult life. This comes from various different life experiences such as university learning, job learning, learning a new culture, geographical changes, marital breakdown, social mobility, physical handicaps

Question 6

What is anticipatory socialization?

Answer 6

This is the kind of socialization that socialization that comes from anticipating one’s role in advance. It is done in preparation for something

Question 7

What is resocialization?

Answer 7

The concept of being able to replace one’s old habits, or socialization, with others in the form of resocialization, or just a socialization in a different sense. Self-help groups, rehabilitation, etc

Question 8

What are the four main theories of socialization?

Answer 8

• Learning theory
• Cognitive development theory
• Identification (Psychoanalytic) theory
• Symbolic Interactionism

Question 9

What is learning theory?

Answer 9

This is a theory that denotes socialization as behaviours that are learnt
Certain behaviours are incentivized through rewards and punishment or they are learnt through observation and imitation

Question 10

What is the cognitive development model?

Answer 10

This model describes a form of socialization that occurs over the course of six stages of development
Basically the child learns to reason, remember and believe

Question 11

What is identification (psychoanalytic) theory?

Answer 11

This theory is based in psychology, specifically freudian psychology, as it focuses on concepts such as the ego, the id, and the superego

Question 12

What is symbolic interactionism?

Answer 12

It is a theory that is defined by Weber, Simmel, Mead and Cooley. This is something that is is stressed in anthropology. Relations characterized by role-taking and negotiation. Looks for symbolic meaning, perceptions and expectations. Negotiation (negotiated values), trust and shared meanings. Change is inherent, an ongoing process. Main tendency: society is created through interpersonal interactions. Criticism: emphasizes subjective meaning

Question 13

What does Charles Cooley’s Looking Glass Self describe?

Answer 13

It describes an idea of how we imagine we look to other people. We imagine how other people judge the appearance we think we present, therefore changing our behaviours to present something else entirely in order to be perceived in the way we desire. If we think the evaluation favourable, our self-concept is enhanced. However, if we think it unfavourable, our self-concept is diminished.

Question 14

For Cooley the forming of the self, through social interaction, what are the three steps?
- Perception
- Interpretation
- Response

Answer 14

• Perception: how we believe we appear to others, especially of those whose opinions we value
• Interpretation: how we imagine the others judge our appearances
• Response: how we feel as a result, pride, or embarrassment. In this way we develop a set of beliefs and evaluations about ourselves

Question 15

What is George Herbert Mead’s Model of the Social Self

Answer 15

• Baby
• Non-verbal communication
• Baby influenced by social interaction through language
• Through language the baby develops its mind and its social self (creative and spontaneous)
• This leads to development of the I and the Me. The I is the individual’s response to others’ attitudes and the Me is the social attitude learned through socialization. The Me is impacted by the Generalized Other and the Significant Other.

Question 16

What is genetic sex?

Answer 16

This is the how sex is identified through genetics. It is unalterable as it is embedded within our DNA Females and males share 22 pairs of the 23 pairs of chromosomes, the 23rd pair determines genetic sex. In males, it is the XY pair. In females, it is the XX pair

Question 17

What is hormonal sex?

Answer 17

These are the hormones that are excreted as a consequence of a person’s sex. Hormones are the chemical substances secreted by endocrine glands into the bloodstream. All hormones are in both sexes however the levels are different between sexes. Chief male sex hormone is testosterone (one of a group called androgens). Androgens cause male genital development. Estrogen + progesterone are the primary female sex hormone. Production of sex hormones increases at puberty leading to menstruation, breasts.

Question 18

What is gonadal sex?

Answer 18

This is sex that can be altered. It includes the ovaries or testes. The gonadal cells become ovaries or testes. The testes produce male hormones and leads to the development of the penis.

Question 19

What is genital sex?

Answer 19

It is how sex is assigned based on one’s genitals. From this our behaviour is assigned and interpreted at birth. Includes the clitoris and penis

Question 20

What are Audre Lorde’s main points?

Answer 20

African American, born in the US, apparently her mother was born in Grenada and her
father in Barbados.
Born 1934-Died 1992
1)Difference must not be merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities
between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.
2)Interdependency of different strengths acknowledged and equal so we can seek new
ways of being.
3)Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is
forged. Descending into the chaos of knowledge together and returning with true visions
of our future.
4)Learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.
5)Difference therefore seen as a crucial strength.
6)Advocates: NOT Divide and Conquer
BUT Define and Empower
Asks why white feminists are not more informed about Black feminist issues. She draws
this analogy:
White women are called upon to educate white men about their existence and needs,
keeping the oppressed preoccupied with the Master’s needs.
Now Black women hear it is the task of women of colour to educate white women as to
their existence and differences..
Well-known expression of Audre Lorde: The Master’s tools will never dismantle the
Master’s house.
(explanation = Black women have to find different ways of dismantling patriarchy and
the dominance of white women in the feminist movement)

Question 21

What are Sterling’s points?

Answer 21

1. Ways in which the state, law and medical systems construct and maintain 2 sex
   binary
2. Uses “Intersex” to illuminate ways in which the 2 sexes are not enough. It is a
   continuum rather than a binary approach. At least 5 sexes, maybe more.
3. History of intersexuality, people formerly called “hermaphrodites” and the
   approach was “choose a side”. Anglo-Saxon legal system: requiring births to be
   registered as male or female. Medical repression of intersexuality. Third genders
   recognized in some places. In the UK now GRC Gender Recognition Certificate –
   does not require medical intervention, gender-affirming surgery in order to be
   recognized. Gender dysphoria entered the DSM when homosexuality was
   removed. (PLEASE LOOK UP IN THE DSM 5, AND KNOW, the conditions
   that have to be met for Gender Dysphoria to be diagnosed, for Children, and for
   Youth and Adults)
4. Medical establishment became very involved in post-World War 2 years, since
   early 1950s. Medicine focussed on distress of parents and assumed intersex
   people were unlovable.
5. Treatment of intersexuality = example of Foucault’s idea of biopower – having
   power over bodies. Biopolitics.

Question 22

What are the conditions that must be met for gender dysphoria to be diagnosed for children according to the DSM 5?

Answer 22

A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
In boys (assigned gender), a strong preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical masculine clothing and a strong resistance to the wearing of typical feminine clothing
A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender
A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
In boys (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically masculine toys, games, and activities and a strong avoidance of rough-and-tumble play; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically feminine toys, games, and activities
A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy
A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender

Question 23

What are the conditions that must be met for gender dysphoria to be diagnosed for youth/adults according to the DSM 5?

Answer 23

A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
In boys (assigned gender), a strong preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical masculine clothing and a strong resistance to the wearing of typical feminine clothing
A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender
A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
In boys (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically masculine toys, games, and activities and a strong avoidance of rough-and-tumble play; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically feminine toys, games, and activities
A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy
A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender
As with the diagnostic criteria for adolescents and adults, the condition must also be associated with clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.